The Reality in the Dream
by NatesMama
Summary: One shot imagining a different reality from Booth's coma dream...


_**Hey, hey...just a little one-shot to keep the fan fic muscles working. Gotta gove thanks to the beautiful and talented DME, who read the whole thing and gave me her unvarnished opinion, and ToberLove (from Twitter) and Miss Pinky (ihmbookworm) for reading the first part and giving me fantastic input as well. Thanks, ladies! **_

~B&B~ 

The Reality in the Dream

_He doesn't remember…he thinks it was all a dream…_

Brennan moved around her apartment, putting things back where they belonged, righting the pillows on the sofa, and picking up errant beer bottle labels. With a sigh she switched off the lamp and walked, resignedly, towards her bedroom.

The evening had been a complete success. Everyone she worked with, their significant others, her interns, all gathered together for a homemade dinner and fun party games. It was part of the strides Brennan had decided to make in connecting more with the people around her, to pull them closer, to make sure that nothing ever came between them again. And they all had a great time, laughing and teasing and drinking just a little too much, but not enough to dull the memory of a lovely evening.

Cam had brought Paul, both trying to make an effort to spend more time together, and by all accounts things were going well between them. Angela, heavily pregnant, had still managed to be the wildest member of the group, much to Hodgins delight and embarrassment. Sweets and Daisy had come together and left together, their relationship more solid than before she left for Maluku. Even the interns had brought their girlfriends, and no one was surprised when Vincent's girlfriend turned out to be quiet as a church mouse and Fischer's wore heavy black mascara and a dog collar.

Booth had come alone.

In the month since he had split with Hannah, the team had tried to draw Booth out of his self-imposed shell, inviting him to lunch or dinner or drinks, accepting with grace every time he turned them down. It was as if he were punishing himself for something none of them would verbalize but all understood. He had pushed them away while Hannah was around; trying to make room for her in a life he had already built without room to spare for another person. It was like trying to shoehorn an elephant into a steamer trunk, and almost as ugly to watch, not to mention painful, for all parties involved. Hannah made an effort to get to know Booth's friends, but when the man himself didn't even assist her, and in fact did everything he could to hinder the process, she finally gave up…and so did Booth. The split was amicable, but Booth didn't even share the news with anyone, including Brennan, for almost two weeks. When Hannah failed to show up for Angela's baby shower, Cam had finally gotten the truth from Booth. To say that they were all confused was an understatement, but as one they'd decided to let it go and see if Booth decided to pull himself up and start living again. Brennan's idea for the party was her way of giving him a place to start.

To the surprise of everyone but Brennan, Booth had joined in on the games, told funny stories from his time away, showed off new pictures of Parker, and offered to help Brennan with the dishes after the meal. The two partners worked in companionable silence for the majority of the chore, speaking only when necessary.

Things were going very well until Wendell decided that they needed to play Truth or Dare, which Angela heartily endorsed. After a few boring rounds, things took a turn for the raunchy as Hodgins insisted that Fischer's dare was to kiss Clark on the mouth, a deed which was done quickly and with no small amount of manly posturing on both of the participant's parts. When it was Angela's turn, she wheeled on Brennan, a determined glint in her eye.

"Okay, Bren…truth or dare?"

"Truth. I am not kissing Cam on the lips. No offense." She nodded at her boss with a small smile.

Raising her glass, Cam agreed. "None taken."

"Okay, then…" Rubbing her hands together, Angela dived right in. "The last time you had sex, where did the act take place?"

Brennan froze. Her eyes immediately cut to Cam, whose own eyes widened in recognition, a conversation held outside a hospital room almost two years previous popping into her head.

_"He doesn't remember."_

_"Dr. Brennan…he is just confused. He's talking about a dream he had while he was in the coma, and he's got us all confused with the people he dreamed of."_

_Brennan shook her head. "No! The…dream, it's a book I was writing. I read it to him while he was sleeping."_

_Covering the shocked look that crossed her face, Cam sat down next to her friend. "Okay. So he took what you read him and processed that fantasy into a realistic dream. That's not unheard of; the research on coma patients is clear about outside stimulation affecting what they experience while they are unconscious."_

_"But…not everything I wrote was fantasy. One part…part of it actually happened."_

Brennan had sworn Cam to secrecy, and to that day she hadn't told a soul. In fact, Brennan never mentioned it again so Cam had assumed Booth remembered what was real and what wasn't and they had moved on from it. Now, seeing the panic on Brennan's face, she knew that wasn't so at all.

Struggling to answer Angela's question, Brennan looked closely at her own feet, hoping beyond hope that Angela would get frustrated with her non-answer and move on. She should have known better.

_"Do you love me?"_

"Come on, Bren! Everyone else 'fessed up. It's a simple question."

"In a bed."

Angela raised her eyebrows. "You know I meant where, as in geographical location, sweetie."

"Washington DC."

Groans from everyone else and narrowed eyes from Angela only served to strengthen her resolve. She was not going to reveal something that personal in front of all of these people, and certainly not in front of the one person who didn't even remember being an active participant in said experience.

Realizing that it was a lost cause, Angela gave up. "Fine, Bren. But you and I are going to talk later."

Relieved to have gotten away with not answering, Brennan smiled. She hazarded a glance at Booth, who was staring at her as if she was a puzzle he was trying to solve. Shaking her head, she turned back to the group and since it was her turn to ask, focused her attention on Sweets.

Now, hours later, Brennan realized as she moved to her bathroom to prepare for bed that eventually she was going to have to speak with Booth about his coma dream, just not tonight.

The instantly recognizable knock on her door told her that she might very well be wrong about that.

_"Do you love me?"_

When she opened the door to him, Booth stood outside for longer than a moment. He had his hands buried in his jeans pockets and his shoulders were slumped. He looked…defeated.

"I'm sorry, Bones." It was so quiet she almost didn't catch it.

She opened the door all the way and gestured for him to come in. Once he was settled on her sofa, she took up the seat in front of him on the large ottoman, hands linked in her lap. "What, exactly, are you sorry for, Booth?"

He looked up at her, brown eyes meeting blue, and she was shocked to see that his were glassy. "I forgot you."

_"Do you love me?"_

_"Yeah. Want me to prove it to you?"_

_"Mmm…if you're not too sleepy…"_

"Booth…you didn't-"

"I still dream about it sometimes, you know. Not-" He leaned back against the sofa and sighed. "Not every night, but often enough. It's like a movie playing in my head, and up until tonight I know you think I thought it was just what we had created with your book and my coma-enhanced imagination."

"I'm sorry, Booth." A whisper.

He jerked forward, eyes wide. "Why? You didn't do anything wrong! You were right to be hurt, not to tell me." Booth stood and moved to behind the sofa, bracing his hands on the back and leaning forward. "I forgot what was the most intense, passionate weekend of my life, Bones!"

Brennan leapt off the ottoman and hit the sofa on her knees, reaching for his hands. She turned wide, clear eyes to his pale, frightened face. "What do you remember?"

He clutched her hands back just as desperately. "I remember _everything._"

_"Bones, you're killing me here…"_

_"Uh.." Hiccup "I think that you and I have had entirely too much to drink."_

_"Nah…no such thing. Besides, we have stressful jobs…we deserve a little fun!"_

_"Really, now…and how much fun did you have in mind, Agent Booth?"_

"I know we'd been drinking, but neither of us was really drunk. My mind was as clear then as it is now. And so was yours, Bones. We…made love. All weekend long. Well, except for when you had to go to that meet and greet for your publisher. But you came right back to my place that night and got back into bed with me. I remember the smell of the night air, still on your skin…the way you whimpered when I nipped at your earlobe, the smile on your face when I pulled your shirt over your head…telling you that I loved you…all of it, Bones. Every breath, every cry, every moment."

Brennan nodded tightly, eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Yes…"

"How can you ever forgive me?"

Brennan tugged on his hand, leading him around the sofa to sit next to her. She turned to sit sideways on her knees, and held his face in her hands, forcing him to look into her eyes. "There is nothing to forgive."

"How can you say that? You must have been so hurt…all that time, waiting for me to remember…"

"No." She shook her head. "No, Booth. I was hurt, yes. In the hospital, realizing that you thought that weekend was part of your dream, I was hurt. I even talked to Cam, tried to find a way to jog your memory…but in the end I knew that you had to remember on your own. No one else knew about it, so it was easy to pretend that nothing had changed. I mean, we'd barely had a chance to deal with it ourselves when we discovered your tumor, I knew that no one else would understand. So I kept it to myself. I hoped, quite a bit at first, that you would just come walking into the lab one day and I would just know that you remembered. But after more and more days, and months passed, I just assumed that you would never remember. And eventually, it became easier to deal with."

"And then, after that night at Sweets' office…"

"Yes." She swiped at an errant tear. "I wanted so badly to tell you then, but I knew that there was still part of the story missing, and couldn't have that hanging over us. And I had begun to doubt myself by then, thinking that maybe you _had _remembered, but changed your mind about me. That you'd realized that I am a cold, overly-scientific woman without the kind of open heart you have. It made me ache to refuse you like that, but between my own self-doubt and your lost memories…I just couldn't accept your offer of a romantic relationship. I'm so sorry; I should have had more faith in you."

If it were possible, with her admission, more color had drained out of his face. She looked to him in confusion. "Booth…?"

When the words he whispered reached her ears, all the insecurity she felt that night so long ago came screaming back with a vengeance.

"I did remember. Right after the case with the gay dentist."

Brennan stood rapidly and headed for the kitchen. Every nerve in her body seemed to be on fire, vibrating, _alive_ and the urge to run was never as insistent as it was right at that moment. She turned and leaned against the kitchen counter, hands gripping the edge behind her like a lifeline. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was shallow, but she was determined to get herself under control. In that effort, she slowly opened her eyes…and they fell on a picture she had taped to her refrigerator.

It was her and Booth at Founding Fathers with the rest of the team, having a drink after an especially hard case a few months ago. The bartender, Dave, had snapped a quick picture of his favorite patrons and gave it to them the next time they came in. In the photo, the two of them were leaning into each other, the team on either side of them…but they might as well have been all alone. The looks they were exchanging were, for lack of a better word, sexual. And Brennan had never noticed it until that moment. They were…connected, by some invisible force, something that wasn't visible but to them was quite tangible. Real. And this was right in the middle of a time where Brennan had never felt further away and more disconnected from Booth since the beginning of their partnership. And yet, despite all of the pain and distance and denial…the center was still holding. _How had she missed it?_

"Bones."

Her head whipped around to where Booth was standing in the kitchen doorway. He looked slightly nauseated, and a little sheepish. "Can I explain? Please?"

Nodding, Brennan turned and busied herself with making tea as he spoke. She hoped he couldn't see her hands shaking violently.

"I didn't tell you that I had remembered because, well…the simplest answer is that I was afraid that you had a change of heart. That, because you'd never brought it up, you didn't want to pursue that aspect of our relationship any longer. Now I know why you kept silent, and I couldn't love you any more for that, but at the time I was still confused and unsure…and I just made a mistake. I wish I could take it all back, Bones…but I can't. That night, when I laid everything out, I wanted to bring it up…but you said no, you couldn't change…and I assumed that you were just confirming my suspicions. And now, it turns out, we were both wrong. Very, very-oof!"

Booth was thrown backwards as Brennan threw herself into his arms, holding him around the waist desperately as she buried her face in his chest. "I'm so sorry, Booth! I'm so, so sorry!"

Booth felt his shirt dampen and he realized that she was crying. He turned her head up so that she could look into his face, and smiled. "Bones, we need to stop apologizing. Obviously we still have a lot to talk about, but…I think maybe we're finally in the same place. Right?" He looked down at her, his hopeful expression threatening to break her all over again.

Brennan nodded, and leaned up for what she would later describe as the sweetest, deepest, most loving kiss she had ever received. Booth cradled her head in his hands as he deepened the kiss, pulling tiny moans and deep groans from both of them. When they finally parted, breathing heavily, they shared one of those looks they were so good at…the one where they appeared to be speaking without ever moving their lips.

_"Do you love me?"_

_"Yeah. Want me to prove it to you?"_

_"Yes. Yes…and I will always believe you."_


End file.
